Ponies of Fayra — Legend of Harmony

Flare stood on guard for a while before she decided to take Amber’s advice and get some exercise while she napped.

Wanting to feel solid ground beneath her hooves, Flare made her way up to the jungle, where she was surprised at first to find what appeared to be a well-maintained trail, but quickly decided that it was probably something Amber and her pony family maintained.

As Flare came into a large garden area, she saw a dragon statue that looked nearly identical to Amber, which solidified her theory about it being something they had set up, which put her mind at ease as she wandered around looking at things.

Strolling around the garden, Flare admired the rigorously methodical layout, a far cry from the usual messy gardens she was used to seeing in the Lost Isles. If it was one thing few, if any pegasi were known for, it was clean and orderly layouts. She also marveled at the detailed stone patterns and colorfully painted décor. The stone patterns and décor were all quite a bit different from anything she’d seen in the Lost Isles. Especially as few things were even made from stone.

Once she had gone through the gardens several times, Flare made her way to the building and knocked before trying to push the door open. After a few moments of struggling to budge the massive door, she decided it didn’t really matter, since she had spent so much time in the garden area that she should return to see if Amber had woken up.

Approaching the beach, Flare saw Amber stretching. Making her way over to her, she called out. “I love your garden! It must have taken you forever to make all that stonework.”

Amber stared at Flare perplexed for several long moments. “What garden?”

“You know, the big one in the jungle, next to the stone building and dragon statue?”

“My mother does have a statue in the center of the island, but there shouldn’t be anything else there.”

“Uhm, well, there is. Quite a lot, actually.”

Amber got an intensely serious look on her face moments before telling Flare to stay by the boat and flying off towards the center of the island.

“I’m starting to think I had the entirely wrong idea about that place…” Flare said in a low whisper to herself as she watched Amber zip through the sky. “Flying sure looks fun. I wished pegasi wings could be used to fly.”

After quite some time, Amber returned and had Flare follow her back to the jungle.

“There doesn’t seem to be any pony here now, but I have no doubts that this place has been inhabited by earth ponies for quite some time.”

“I thought you came here regularly?”

“I don’t know where you got that idea. The last time I was here was probably close to three hundred years ago.”

“T-Three hundred!?”

“You don’t have to say it that dramatically. I’m still pretty young for a dragon. At least from what I’m told. Anyway, I think we should take some time to look through the house and see what we can figure out about the earth ponies who live here.”

“What about Zeph?”

“We won’t spend—that much time here—but I need to know what’s going on here. Especially since it could tell us something about Zeph. This place was clearly inhabited by earth ponies very recently, as in, it looks like one was here just a couple of days ago.”

“Y-you’re saying Zeph could have been taken by them!?”

“Precisely. Therefore, we need to try and figure out what kind of circumstance Zeph is in now. That way, we know what we need to do when we find her.”

Flare gulped. “Y-you don’t think she’s been taken prisoner, do you?”

“Well… I can’t say no. As far as I am aware, earth ponies and unicorns think pegasi are extinct. So, I’m not entirely sure what they would do with her, beyond questioning her. Which is, of course, not the best scenario.”

“Then we should go after her—right now—and get her back before they can question her.”

“I can’t carry you, and we are still at least a day away, likely more. Even if we rushed after her, it’ll be too late for that. The moment she came into contact with an earth pony, it was too late for that…”

“Couldn’t we do something to keep the earth pony from talking? You’re a dragon. You could scare him into not talking, like you did Emmy and me.”

Amber raised an eyebrow at Flare. “Scare you into not talking? That wasn’t my intention at all. I was trying to instill a sense of seriousness. I wanted you to understand how important it was to me that you didn’t let my secret slip, as it would do little more than ruin my life. Which, even if you did, it’s not as if I’d seek revenge. I’m not that kind of dragon.”

“Oh—So, I guess even if we did rush to them, the only thing we could do beyond asking nicely is try and work around the situation the best we can…”

“Pretty much. That’s the pegasus way of doing things. And despite my appearance, I’m just another pegasus at heart. I’ll do my best to reason with the earth ponies, and if that fails… I don’t know… I don’t really want to think about it. I’m a fiction writer, not a ruler or anything like it. Especially as the pegasi haven’t had a ruler since my mother. For that matter, we barely even have anything that resembles a government.”

“We have a lot of guilds.”

“Yeah, if earth ponies ever came to the Lost Isles, in the end, it would be the guilds who would most likely negotiate with them. Which, unless the earth ponies have changed an awful lot since the last time I was around them, I don’t think that would go well. They—really like their noble-driven culture. Our guilds don’t even have defined leaders to talk to. Everything in the guilds is decided at general meetings and public votes; in the rare case, a guild member consensus can’t be reached.”

“I think you might be to blame for that. Your books are always showing the dangers of consolidated power.”

“Pegasi were already like that before I started writing. Of course, I’m told it wasn’t always that way. After my mother was driven from the Lost Isles, it supposedly took quite a long time for our society to settle into the state I’ve always known it. The main reason I wrote those stories was to make sure the lessons of the past weren’t forgotten.”

Reaching the main building, Flare noticed the door was open.

“You got the door open?”

“Why so surprised?”

“I tried to go in, but couldn’t get the door to budge.”

“You remember what I said about realizing just how weak you are? Doors like this are nothing for earth ponies. They’re kind of obsessed with making everything out of stone or extra-thick hardwood. Because of their weight, they need to make everything sturdy so it’ll last. Though in the case of doors, they make them like this for security. Few things can push stone around like earth ponies, so they consider it good security.”

“What about their kids? Surely a young earth pony isn’t—that strong?”

“If a child is too young to open a door, it shouldn’t be opening them without their parents. As you’ll soon see, earth ponies don’t commonly have doors inside their homes.”

Making her way into the building, the first thing that caught Flare’s attention was the sprawling mural painted across the walls.

“Wow, is this what the mainland looks like?” asked Flare as she twirled around the room.

“Parts of it. The central mainland is made up of a lot of rolling hillsides like this, that just seem to stretch on forever.”

As Flare spun around the room, her eyes eventually landed on the painted coconuts on the table. Each one painted in what appeared to be the same scene, but in different seasons. Which Flare knew from several of the books she had read written by Amber.

“Does the mainland really get… uhm, what was the white rain called again?”

“Snow, and yes. Though not all of it. Anyway, let’s split up and start looking around.”

Flare looked around wondering where to start, then looked back at Amber. “I don’t know, feels kind of weird rummaging through other pony’s things without permission.”

“Can’t let that bother you. Finding the right clue now could be the difference between life and death in the near future.”

Feeling the weight of Amber’s words sink into her heart, Flare took a deep breath and began searching every space she could reach. As she combed through the bottom section of the building, she found general supplies, such as dried food, seeds, tools, paints, brushes, rope, and more often made in fashions that seemed far different from what she was used to, along with what she felt was an exorbitant amount of art and craft projects. It was as if some pony, or ponies, had little else to do with most of their time.

As Flare dug through a particularly dusty cabinet she found filled with especially ornate fabric, unlike anything else she had come across, she found an equally ornate book covered in shiny gold and silver details. After marveling at the cover for a few moments, she opened the book and began trying to read, but found that the writing was done in a script she couldn’t make out.

Calling out to Amber, Flare made her way back out to the main room, where Amber flew down the stairs and landed. Taking the book in her claw, Amber flipped through the pages while her expression grew ever more serious until she suddenly snapped the book shut and looked at Flare.

“This is an interesting development…”

“Uhm, what?”

“The royal prince of the earth ponies and his wife set out to find the Lost Isles sixty-seven years ago after uncovering the true history of their family, which isn't mentioned. In an effort to right the wrongs of their lineage after, they found one of my mother’s old route maps and learned that pegasi still existed, but wound up shipwrecked on this island. This book ends twenty-five years ago when the prince left the island to continue his search.”

“Didn’t you say earth ponies had been here days ago?”

“Indeed… The book says only the prince himself left the island. He left his son and wife behind, fearing that his odds of making it to the Lost Isles were slim to none. Given the fact an earth pony, at least to my knowledge, has never set hoof on the Lost Isles, let alone in the past twenty-five years, we can only assume his fears were correct.”

“Which means Zeph is helping the earth ponies get back to the mainland!”

“It would seem so. Though it makes me wonder. Why help them to the mainland when they were trying to get to the Lost Isles?”